Tuesday, February 9, 2010

MachinmUWA Winners Announcement

At 1pm slt, Monday 8th Feb 2009, an absolutely out of this world (in more ways than one) Machinima, called 'SEEK' by Cisko Vandeverre of Berlin, Germany took out the $L65,000 first prize of MachinimUWA: The UWA Machinima Challenge in the presence of more than 65 avatars and the doyen of Second Life, Torley Linden at a sparkling awards ceremony on the University of Western Australia Sim.

A 12 member international judging panel led by Professor Alan Robson (RL), Vice Chancellor of the University of Western Australia awarded the top prize to Cisko, ahead of a couple of other spectacular entries by Bradley Dorchester (2nd Prize, L$44,000) and ColeMarie Soleil (3rd Prize, L$42,000).

This challenge co-hosted by White Lebed and Jayjay Zifanwe attracted entries from around the world, and 13 finalists were shortlisted from Texas, Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Paris, Maastricht, Berlin, Toronto and Perth.

Stunned by the win, Cisko was over the moon, 'I'm overwhelmed...need to calm down. Thank you. I love all of you. I need another drink.'

The judges thought that this was an absolute firecracker of a Machinima with a brilliant and very different approach. This had wonderful humour, amazing visual effects, great quality of editing and remarkable camera control.

With Bradley's work, the judges felt this had wonderful velocity with fantastic cutting to music transients, an epic soundtrack and showed off the "4 main elements" to great effect.

ColeMarie's brilliant modern and edgy piece was another favourite. Responding to the announcement, she said, 'I would like to thank all the artists involved in the creation of the UWA sims,and to UWA in particular, for this terrific opportunity to creatively express myself. To all my friends who gave me my space and understood how much working on this project meant to me, to JayJay for asking me to make this video, and Surrealia Anatine for getting me into machinima to start with. To energy drinks for keep me working late into the night, and Bryn Oh for 'subtle' yet threatening encouragements to finish this video.'

The judging panel had an extremely hard time seperating the entries, and a number of stand-out works had to finish in the finalist position. The overall quality of the entries is emhasised by the more than doubling of the overall prize pool from $L90,000 to $L215,000 within 5 minutes of the completion of the viewing of the finalists by the RL (real life) members of the panel.

'I am so thankful to all the wonderful machinimatographers of Second Life who have so artfully put together works of brilliance that I am sure will be able to smash through the SL/RL barrier, and make SL and virtual worlds more relevant and prominent especially in the education sector. Words cannot express how thankful I am to my co-host, White Lebed, without whom the Challenge would not have started, and also to the wonderful people who provided the prizes, including the Casey Family of Western Australia, Dr Chris Thorne (RL), Philip Vought (SL), MidnightRain Glas (SL), Professor Alan Robson and John Stubbs of UWA and a secret benefactor,' said Jayjay.

In the words of Torley Linden as he was being TP'ed out at the end of the ceremony to attend to Viewer 2.0 matters, 'This has been awesometastic!'.

Yes Torley. It has indeed.

JUDGING PANEL

Professor Alan Robson (RL) - Vice-Chancellor, The University of Western AustraliaProfessor Ted Snell (RL) - Director, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western AustraliaA/Professor Wade Halvorson (RL) - Lecturing in Marketing, Business and Electronic Commerce, The University of Western AustraliaColin Campbell Fraser (RL) - Principal Adviser (External Relations and Advocacy),
Vice-Chancellery, The University of Western AustraliaKelly Smith (RL) - Director, International Centre, The University of Western AustraliaJon Stubbs (RL) - Director, Student Services, The University of Western AustraliaSusana Willis-Johnson (RL) - Marketing Manager, The University of Western AustraliaDr Carmen Fies (RL) - Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at San AntonioTorley Linden (SL) - Linden LabsWhite Lebed (SL) - Lead of Burning Life Art Department, Director of Special Events at UWA-SLRaphaella Nightfire (SL) - CEO SW&MB Fashion Productions, CEO Evane Model Agency, Snr Writer Best of SL Magazine
and me, JayJay who made coffee and tea for the panel!